Investment domains for trading fake stocks and cryptocurrencies

At the beginning of 2021 experts from the CERT-GIB center saw a significant rise in the activity of fake investors. They say that over the past nine months the number of fraudulent domains grew to 163%. Group-IB specialists recorded more than 50 different schemes and 8 thousand domains of fraudulent investment projects related to the sale of shares and digital currency.

Specialists note that fraudsters more often exploited the so-called hybrid schemes. It means in addition to traditional phishing they used fake mobile applications that acted as terminals, and even organized calls from “personal assistants”. The typical victims of such were those wanting to get rich quickly and without some effort. Fraudsters made profitable looking proposals of investments in cryptocurrency and shares of oil and gas companies. But everything just ended with money loss and stolen bank card data.

Investment domains for trading fake stocks and cryptocurrencies — Bitflash Scam Domain

Experts also found more than 50 landing web page templates that described various investment scenarios. A group of 150 people lost nearly 300 million rubles buying bitcoins under the guise of fake investment. Fraudsters promised potential victims unbelievable sums of 300,000 to 10,000,000 rubles a month. Although scammers didn’t make any frills to its landing pages imitating the style of those well-known news resources: RBC, Russia Today and Russia-24. Over the entire observed period, Group-IB monitored more than 8,000 domains certainly involved in fraudulent schemes. During their research they found that between June and July 2021 solely one attacker registered 322 domains from only one email address.

How to spot an investment scam?

With every year investment scammers create more and more cunning ways to get to your money. And with every year they succeed more and more earning millions of dollars. Experts estimate that one in 10 investors was scammed at some point in their lives. But this doesn’t mean you should stay away from the industry at all. Just try to develop a healthy skepticism and study the possible red flags of a scam. Learn the following scam come-ons, tactics and sidesteppings to avoid getting your investment money just disappear into thin air.

If you out of the blues was approached with an unsolicited investment opportunity take into consideration the next:

First things first ask for the documentation. Usually, for example, bonds are required to have an offering circular and ETFs, mutual funds, stocks should have prospectus. Ask for them and if three`s none then the case might be a scam;

Don`t rush with your decision. Under normal circumstances you will have time to think everything over. But when an alleged investment professional tells you there’s no time to do that then they just rush you to give up your money into their hands;

Verify credentials. A proper legitimate investment professional should be registered with the relevant authority. At the very least you can also check with Google on the person and everything you might be suspicious about;

Keep in mind that there` s no such thing as easy money. Don`t believe those who promise guaranteed, assured profits with zero risk. The investment industry always poses some kind of risk;

Never feel obligated to anything. Even if you had some seminar for free it doesn’t automatically mean you owe something in return.